Okay, as usual I've been packing it all in as much as poss over the last few days so I hope you don't get too bored by my ramblings on this blog...

So I was about to visit Cairns in my search for Nemo on the Great Barrier Reef last time and well, needless to say I had great fun. Spent a whole day on a maxi catermaran called "Passions of Paradise" where we went out to two spots on the Reef to snorkel. I saw lots of angel fish, nemos and giant clams - it was just like swimming in a huge, clear, warm, fish tank. The coral is just as fascinating as the fish though and you can't really get your head round how it's this big living world under the ocean that most of us don't ever think about! Very cool indeed!

That night we headed to the outskirts of Cairns to see an aboriginal cultural show where we got to learn more about the aborigines who live in and around the area. When we arrived we had our faces painted - the more paint you get the more manly you are apparently! And then we all had to take part in a special fire ceremony where we had to sing the fire song and play in time on the claves - I loved this and wanted to film it on my camera so I could one day use it back in the classroom! I think the Aborigines are fascinating and could make a great project so I spent most of the night thinking about how you could link it to all sorts of subjects at school! Anyway, once the fire was going we got to have a feast of tremendous proportions and watch some of the aboriginal dreamtime stories being acted out. it was another interesting part of Aussie culture to experience but I get the feeling that life is quite hard for the Aboriginal people out here. I don't think they're revered as much as the Maoris in New Zealand for example. There seems to be a lot of predjudice against them which I never knew existed until I came out here.

On the second day in Cairns we took a trip up to a place called Karanda. Unfortunately the sky rail up to Karanda was not working because of a power cut so we took the bus up the hill. Not quite as exciting but it was working on the way down so we got to scale the heights of the rainforest then. Karanda is in the heart of the rainforest and at the top of the hill there are lots of markets and visitors centres like a butterfly sanctuary, insect zoo and the aussie animals zoo. This is where I got to cuddle my koala! He was totally adorable and just clung onto you for dear life. I wanted to take him home in my backpack!

The next day we flew over to the Northern Territory - Alice Springs in fact. So time for some updates from the ol' outback! Well Alice is definately an outback town, it is in the middle of nowhere and is in a total time warp! There isn't much to do here apart from use it as a base to travel out towards Uluru (Ayers Rock) and the other attractions. So we did just that and headed on out in our truck to the Ayers Rock Campground. That afternoon we braved the scorching heat (44 degrees!) and went to the Ulura and Kata Tjuta National Park. We took a walk straight through the middle of the Olgas (and nearly died of heat exhaustion I might add). After that we went to watch the sunset over Uluru and I loved watching it change colour from a lovely irony red to the burning red that you can see in the picture on this blog.

We had our dinner under the stars that night but our sleep wasn't very long because we got up to see the sunrise at Uluru -equally as beautiful as the sunset as you can imagine. Then I took a walk around the whole base of Ulura which took 3 hours to complete and I've got some brilliant photos of the rock paintings and the rock itself. While we were in this area we also visited Kings Canyon which is less well known as Ulura and Kata Tjuta but in my opinion shouldn't be! It is basically just what is says it is - a huge canyon but you can take an amazing walk around the rim of the canyon. After a really steep walk up the canyon you come to some unbelievable landscape at the top - it looks like Mars! There's also a waterfall and lake area called The Garden of Eden and it definately lives up to its name!

On my last day in Alice I got up super early again to go hot air ballooning! We got up at half 3 in the morning and traveled into the outback to set up the balloons. Then we got to have a half hour flight over the outback at sunrise which was so serene - a very calming ride, so peaceful up there floating along. We had a bit of a crash landing though, hitting a bush and some bumps along the way. To top it off our basket toppled over at the last minute so we were all hanging out but clinging on for dear life! Exciting! After helping to pack up the balloon (v. dirty work) we got to have a champagne breakfast (which made up for it!).

The only other event in Alice that day was that we all went to see the new Baz Lurhman movie "Australia". IT IS AWESOME, AMAZING, BRILLIANT AND FANTASTIC! Too many adjectives! I urge you all to go and see it when it comes out in the UK. I cried bucket loads and drooled bucket loads over the gorgeous Hugh Jackman. It think it was even better for me because we had been to some of the places in the film and it was just a great addition to my Aussie experience!

Now in Darwin and going to do some more exploring over the next 5 days. Speak to you all soon!